Greedy Goblin

Thursday, July 15, 2010

The magic behind the ruleset

As I wrote yesterday, the reason of the success of The PuG is a non-WoW related behavioral ruleset. It is aimed to get rid of social behavior with peers what is the major reason for failure. Again I emphasize that there is nothing wrong with being social with people we (reciprocally) choose to have a meaningful relationship (like wife, child, real friend, boss...). I'd like to go over the rules and explain how do they trick one's mind to act asocially.

"Recruitment is permanent. You can join any time." and "Invitation: everyone gets invited, except obvious retards" To have a social group, it must have boundaries. Without boundaries a bunch of people in the same place and time do not form a social group. Just think of passengers of the same aircraft or shoppers of the same store. They don't consider themselves "group of friends", since they come and go. Of course in a WoW guild people come and go too. However the illusion of boundary that lies in the complicated application methods, make the person believe that his guild is a "group of friends". This rule destroys the illusion.

"Anyone who violates the below rules gets warning(s) and if does not fix his error, kicked." and "Retarded behavior like lol, gets you kicked." It is normal among friends to be more intimate and tolerant about violations. As an extreme example, it's totally OK to be naked front of your girlfriend but illegal front of strangers. Also, highly offensive or maybe even illegal statements (like the n-word) are considered joking among friends. If someone witnesses such minor infractions without punishment, he automatically assumes that the perpetrator and the victim are "friends kidding with each other" (while it's usually not funny for the victim). Since one observes several such "kidding", he start to feel that he is among "group of friends". Later he makes similar infractions and without punishment, his belief that "I'm among friends" is enforced. Actually he make the infractions with the intention to be funny and friendly, and he is surprised that the victim is not happy. The same people do not do the same infractions on the bus or in a shop and would feel highly inappropriate to do so. Punishing these infractions places the mind into "I'm in a shop" state instead of "I'm with buddies". The reason why the victim is usually alone against abuse is that everyone else feels that "joking" appropriate, as it facilitates the "I'm with buddies" atmosphere. The complaining victim questions this illusion, therefore observed "unfriendly" or "not relaxed".

"No IRL things on gchat." Friends care for your things, by definition. Actually in the guild 90% of the readers of your "guyz ive just seen meg fox pics" do not care. However the non-caring are silent, and the few ones who care continue the "discussion". You unconsciously believe that they all listened and the approving-continuing comments of the few are representing the 100%, you are among a group of accepting, listening, caring friends. Again: you would never stop a guy in the shop to tell him "I love Dr House, he is so cool". Banning such chat places you to the "I'm in the shop" state of mind.

"No gz!" and "No hi/bye!": Friends celebrate meaningless achievements (being 1 year older is hard and really deserves a cake). Friends even celebrate bumping into you by greeting. The grats and the hi/bye creates the feeling that you arrived to friends. Again: does anyone greet you in the shop (besides the shop-assistant who wants to "be your friend")?

"No communist collective! You are not required to help a guildy for free". It's obvious. Friends help each other, strangers don't. If you don't ask or offer help, if you don't witness people selflessly helping each other, you unconsciously feel yourself "in the shop" and not "among buddies".

"Alt rule: One char/account. If you changed your mind and want other class, quit with the old one." This is a complicated and very important rule and will get its own post Friday.

"No forced specs." and "No forced attendance." The opposite means "you have to make sacrifices for the others". By choosing a healer instead of the 10th hunter, you choose to help the other 9 to get into an instance instead of competing with them for spots. Such sacrifices are obvious among friends, and the lack of these is unfriendly. The 9 people who can't raid due to lack of 10th and especially the guy who has to sit out since someone else took his spot will feel many things but not warm fuzzy social stuff.

"No voice communication." It's a technical rule, because the above rules can be objectively judged in writing and not in speech. I mean a typed "lol" is there or not. A typed "c'mon bitch" is there or not. A laughter or a "c'mon [murmur]" is a nastier issue. Also the writing can be scrolled up and mistakes processes minutes after they happen, while in speech if someone don't catch them immediately they won't be caught and the lack of consequence unconsciously builds the "among buddies" feeling among witnesses and especially the speaker.

These rules all place the player to the "I'm among NPCs" state of mind so he "magically becomes successful" because:

he spends his play time preparing for a raid by collecting serious upgrades, reading up strategies and practicing instead of boosting the 10th alt of some "friend" or chit-chat about some nonsense or farming "cool" pet or mount to show off.

he will get feedback from other raiders as they think about how to improve his play (therefore the group's success) instead of thinking about "not to hurt his feelings" or "be helpful as he is new".

he will receive the feedback well, as defensive behavior is "defending reputation". The guy who sticks to "it wasn't my fault lol" prefers the image of "good player" over actual improvement. No one try to defend his image among NPCs.

he is motivated or he is not there. He did not log in because he was expected and would be judged if he is not there. He did not log in to help out his "friends" nor to get some loot (more on that Friday). He logged in for the sole reason to play. If he would lose his interest he could log in next break or even instantly, forfeiting his pot.

In summary: he focuses on his play, put his mental resources and time into it, instead of wasting them on nonsense. His effort makes him successful. The tricks are only needed to free him from the social nonsense that stole his focus.

And again: you can see it with your own eyes in The PuG. If it all turns out to be bullshit, and The PuG works for something else (because it works as Halion world top 10% among guilds proves), you just transfer back loaded gear you acquired and gold and goldmaking tricks you learned.

33 comments:

Ok you convinced me to try. I am going to reroll now. I dont intend to server transfer my 80 as hes working on the insane title right now and I dont want to leave behind my suppliers. We shall see if learning to be asocial instead of constantly boosting alts for people and taking people wearing pvp gear into ICC as there isnt anyone else wanting to come, will actually gain for me the one last big thing i want in the game: to kill the lk. It isnt happening for me on saurfang. At the very least I might learn how to hit gold cap.

""No gz!" and "No hi/bye!": Friends celebrate meaningless achievements (being 1 year older is hard and really deserves a cake). Friends even celebrate bumping into you by greeting. The grats and the hi/bye creates the feeling that you arrived to friends. Again: does anyone greet you in the shop (besides the shop-assistant who wants to "be your friend")?"

Yet, there are several people that have complete disregard for this rule, could you eleborate on the fact they are not sanctioned?

Even though you constructed your experiement such that the participants in your guild should feel no social cohesion at all, they will probably feel all the more bound to each other, because they are all joint in taking part in your asocial experiment. ("We are in THE Pug, we are different than all those regular social players, We are special snowflakes!")

You would have to have a reference guild that doesn't have all these rules (maybe different ones), but which still had some special knack, such that the particpants in this other guild would feel the same cohesion. Then if that guild were to be less successfull than The Pug, could you start drawing conclusions.

Scientifically your experiments are doubtful, because you are proving the points you have been making on your blog for ages already, so I fail to see you as an unbiased researcher.

Gelvon, although I agree with most Things you write in you Blog I am a little bit puzzled by your way of showing that the PUG is something special.I am still not sure what you want to prove with the PUG. With Undergeared the Motivation was very clear and it was also a great success in my opinion. But now with the PUG you created a Environment which should resemble your ideal of a successful Raiding Guild (@ Cirian who posted a Comment in the last Post: A “Hardcore” Guild in ICC is not defined by the Amount of time they spend failing at LK HC. 11/12 HM in ICC25 with the 25% Buff up is most definitely NOT Hardcore.)Anyway, I am just not really sure who you want to prove something to. Halion 10 Normal might set you above the Masses of M&S, but if you want to set up your “the PUG” among and/or as a serious raiding Guild it just won’t do. If you want to prove that the Set of Rules you have somehow makes your Raids superior you need to start competing with Raiding Guilds and not with the trade Channel.

@Zazkadin: I don't have to be unbiased. I just have to be objective (don't create false evidence, don't hide contradicting results). Everyone are biased. Also, EVERY guild claims to be special, even the "/w for inv, most fun guld here lol".

@Riptor: ABSOLUTELY NOT. I don't have to compete with the top5% elite of the WoW community. My aim is NOT to prove you can be No1 by it. My aim is to prove that you can elevate above the M&S, get to the "OK" and "good" region.

Assuming this magical skill works in real life too, now I can see why you said it's hard to acquire it. Maybe because of the ape-subroutines, or the environment we grow up in, but we're pratically "forced" to be social.

Let me see if I understand this: you're saying that in order to be succeful, we gotta "fake" the social interactions, or act socially without giving a crap.

Basically, from what I understand, this magical skill is "blend in the society, make use of the M&S and aim for the top" without worrying about the consequences. Am I going too far?

@anonymous: it will be a post, but no, you don't have to fake. The problem is NOT being social with people you have interaction with. The problem is being social with random strangers.

For example the guy who replaces his completely good car to a new model wants the respect of the Joneses, despite he has no meaningful relationship with them. Or the girl who puts on makeup, trendy dress and high heels when she goes to a supermarket to amuse random guys she meet there (despite they ignore her).

I'm not sure if Gevlon's ideas are somewhat being blurred by the language barrier they cross. Anyone who is bilingual is very familiar with the occasional errors that occur in translations. Ideas often lose their meaning and tone when translated.

So what is truly good to follow to be successful and what isn't? Asocial, social, or a mix of both? I can see where people on either side of the fence would argue that their method is superior. I would say that life isn't so black and white and some occasions require being asocial and others social to be successful. If surrounded by glue sniffing idiots, the best practice is to be asocial unless you want to incorporate glue sniffing into your every day routine. If you are surrounded by Einstein level minds, perhaps being social would benefit you. I think the error in any system of "success" is that the author erroneously concludes that his definition of success is the correct one. Everyone measures and defines success differently. A cancer survivor would probably define success as being healthy and happy. A Wall Street broker would probably define success by the number of shares he sold and the size of his bank account. But if we are defining success as incrementally improving a skill so that it is better today than it was yesterday, that can only be accomplished by meaniful practice and the discipline needed to keep at it; which might require being social, asocial, or neither.

My fear of those who think asocial behavior is appropriate is that they are not looking at the long term future. An executive who deciced that it's better to dump pollutants into my drinking water because the cost of paying the fine is more profitable for his company and paycheck than investing in cleaner technologies is probably thinking "asocially". He is probably thinking "Why should I care if the water is polluted? I don't drink it. And what if the company goes belly up from bad corporate behavior? I will laugh all the way to the bank!" This type of asocial behavior is not the kind I would condone or want emulated.

Regardless the circumnstance I think whatever definition or methods Gevlon establishes as the "magical skill" , we have to be mindful that that his ideas might be distorted by language and his own personal bias. Time is money friend and "blindly" applying Gevlon's principles might cost you both or turn you into the worst raper of mankind since Attila the Hun. But "intelligently" applying "some" of his principles when appropriate could be what you need to get over the "success" hump however me/you/him define it. This "magical skill" series certainly is interesting.

I think I can agree with the basic idea that it's not really desirable to impress and bond with random people, but how long do people in a guild stay just random people to each other? If you spend a lot of time with the same players and get to know them, you start to socialise automatically. Do you think this will make The Pug perform worse after a while? Or do you mean for the rules to make it harder for people to befriend each other?

"The problem is NOT being social with people you have interaction with. The problem is being social with random strangers."

I think that what you are describing is less social or "asocial" tendencies as much as it is practicality. I think that people often use the excuse of social norms (or morality or ethics) to excuse their own personal weakness or unwillingness to take the practical approach.

Example- your lazy, good-for-nothing brother asks for a "loan." You know he won't pay it back, but you give him the money anyway, and you tell people "what could I do? He's my brother!" The practical person would tell the lazy brother to get a job and stop asking for charity. He knows that people will criticize him for "turning away his family." He also knows that it's a stupid rationalization.

The practical person is neither asocial nor anti-social. He just recognizes that being social is not an excuse for making dumb decisions. The magic skill may simply be the willingness to realize that.

I don't buy this acting asocial as the magic behind good guilds, mostly because there are so many counter-examples of guilds far more progressed than Gevlon's guild that don't disallow (and even encourage) social behavior within the guild.

The real secret isn't making everyone in a guild act asocial, it's acknowledging that there are limits to how far you should go in acting social. There is nothing inherently wrong with saying "hi", "bye", or "grats!" in guild chat...the problem is when everyone acts SO friendly that it eclipses trying to be successful in the game. If the group MUST bring a terrible player because it's "unfriendly" not to, that's when you run into issues. It's about finding a good balance.

Gevlon wrote: "he will receive the feedback well, as defensive behavior is "defending reputation". The guy who sticks to "it wasn't my fault lol" prefers the image of "good player" over actual improvement. No one try to defend his image among NPCs"Ok, while it is true that people don't try to defend their image to NPCs, you can't completely ignore the delusions people use to defend their image to themselves.

In a more general sense you have listed a few things that have made the people in your guild more successful than the average: focus, motivation, ability to learn, and an environment with honest and helpful feedback.

Those last two are essential for anyone to get better at anything. With no feedback of any sort it's impossible to know if you're improving. Given that feedback you must have the ability and desire to learn from that feedback.

Meanwhile, the first two seem obvious. If you're focusing on raiding to exclusion of the myriad other things you could do in the game, then you're going to be better at it than if you split your focus. If you're unmotivated, then you don't really care one way or another. This is similar to the ability and desire to learn from feedback. If you get the feedback but don't care, then you won't get any better.

What you have attempted to do is create an environment that maximizes those qualities in otherwise normal people. As I said yesterday, I'm not going to argue the premise at this time. What I am going to argue again is that I believe you have a strong sampling bias in your experiment. It may well be that such an experiment would be completely successful with no sampling bias whatsoever, but until that happens it is very difficult to sell it as proof.

In closing I would like to comment on your summary (bolded parts for emphasis). Gevlon wrote: "In summary: he focuses on his play, put his mental resources and time into it, instead of wasting them on nonsense. His effort makes him successful. The tricks are only needed to free him from the social nonsense that stole his focus."Again, what you're saying here is simple. Focused effort produces better results than unfocused effort or lack of trying. Your argument is that the environment you provided enhanced the focused effort of the group members. If we ignore the sampling bias for a moment, it appears that you were successful. However, you cannot extend these results beyond their scope. You can't make the claim that this is the only way to have a group with such results unless you can prove that no other way is successful.

@Brian - The rules used in the PUG are not necessarily the features of being asocial that makes one successful. They are only a set of restrictions designed to attract the sort of player who IS or WANTS TO BE asocial, and dissuade those who are not. Just because you say "Hi" and "Bye" or not will not make you successful or not by itself, they are merely guidelines that may indicate the sort of person who is or is not asocial.

@Riptor, in point of fact being 11/12 HM 25 means you are only 1 step down from the top 6150 players out of near 10 million. That is relatively successful. As far as it being 25% well.. Even Paragon is currently clearing ICC 25 at 25%, that does not mean they ONLY cleared it at 25%.

Not to mention the fact that I generally try and stay away from the phase "hard core". If I actually used it, rather than pointing out that we were on Hard MODE, then it was inadvertent. Being hard core is not necessarily necessary to be successful, nor is it necessary an indication of success. It is entirely possible there are guilds of bottom feeders out there who raid 6 days a week, wiping on Saurfang normal all night. I would call them pretty hard core.

From what you said in the past, I assume you have a scientific background. Because of this, I am disappointed that you are drawing your conclusions so quickly, without any attempt at falsifying your premises.

One way to falsify, of course, is to set up control experiments. Good controls here would be (1) an anonymous guild on some server, where there is no draw from your blog, and/or (2) go ahead and draw from your blog, but make no rules.

These controls would test for whether it is the rules that create the success, or whether the blog readers are just good raiders.

Second, I am not clear what your hypothesis is exactly with regard to whether being asocial is a necessary or sufficient element of being a successful raider. To me, it clearly cannot be sufficient. For example, if you have no arms and no legs, you cannot raid well, as you simply cannot control the keyboard. Similarly, if you are just so stupid you cannot grasp basic mechanics, being asocial will not help.

So, I suspect your hypothesis is that being asocial is at a minimum a necessary element of being a successful raider, and also the necessary magic skill required for success in other fields. But you do not isolate tests for this.

Let me offer a counter hypothesis. The magic skill is intelligence. Most people who read this blog are relatively intelligent, as you delve into economic theory and offer somewhat complex methods of making gold at the AH. Your Undergeared posts also, I suspect, appeal to the more intelligent WoW crowd. So, if you draw from your blog, you get more intelligent people than your average trade chat pug, and you have more success at raids. To falsify my hypothesis you have to control for it, which you have not done, to my knowledge.

I interviewed some players in Ensidia about how they raid and how they develop their skills. Regardless of how anyone feel about the Ensidia project, one have to admit that they are successful when it comes to raiding.

One thing they kept bringing up was how the guild was a tightnit group of friends with a core who had been playing together for years and years. Further more, how they had heaps of fun together with social banter on VT during breaks and off-times.

Ofcourse Ensidia will not tolerate underperformers. They can pick from the best players. Still, they prove that high performance is not the antithesis of social.

It's not an all or nothing situation. You can be focused on friends and friendship one moment, and professional and instrumental in another. Sometimes it can happen at the same time.

My hypothesis is that one of the key things that makes Ensidia successful (according to their own goals), is the same as for The PuG (after your own goals): That you have a group who agree on what you want to do and how you want to do it.

Even if everyone is pulling in the wrong direction, you will get somewhere ;)

@Eaten by a grue: my resources are limited, so I can't run an all-around experiment, and I know that alternative explanations can exist.

I will address the "blog attract intelligent, or game-focused people" on a Sunday extra post.

Asociality is necessary for any success. But there is a twist in that (Monday post), that allow someone to enjoy the results of asociality without being one.

Obviously not sufficient in a sense you mentioned (no arm). But in a sense that "assuming you have the stuff that 90% of people have, like functional body, no mental defect, literacy..." it is sufficient alone for being above average, being OK like clearing most of ICC and getting above 80% of the playerbase. Of course it's not sufficient for world firsts.

One point I disagree with Gevlon is about him thinking that his rules will create a group of people that treat each other as NPCs. I actually believe that this creates stronger friendships.

Real friendship is not about being 'social' with each other but about being able to rely on each other.

Your rules make helping each other non-mandatory. So when someone helps out then it is because they really mean to be helpful and not because they want to appease a social norm. The person who comes to the raid prepared and on time does so not because they are required but because the person is reliable enough that he/she wants to contribute as much as possible to the success. People who are reliable like this, make for good solid friends who will not bail on you when things get inconvenient.

This whole series has been great. thanks. I have changed the way i have played several times over the last few months. Whenever i logged off and felt i had wasted a night or didn't have much fun. it could 9 times out of 10 be traced to my trying to be social. As for the grats, hi/bye. completely agree, in other guilds you feel obligated to respond regardless of what you are doing and anti-social if you don't do it. By explicitly banning it you clear the simple minded talk and allow for better interactions altogether. I also plan on taking a low gear group into ICC and VOA. I am tired of all the gearscore/achievement requirements and i want to give new people and people willing to learn a chance to have fun without the elistist crap

Gevlon wrote: "like clearing most of ICC and getting above 80% of the playerbase."

Ok, this has been bugging me. Where are you getting such numbers like the 80% you state here? Are you going by number of characters (bad), number of characters at 80 (better, but still bad), number of accounts with a character at 80, or something else?

I would think that the best way would be to measure how progressed an account's most progressed character is and disregard any data from their alts. Also, you'd have to only use accounts that have a level 80 character. I have no idea if it's even possible to get data like that, so I'm wondering what data you're using to get your percentages.

Gevlon, has it ever occured to you that replacing one set of social norms with a different set of social norms is simply you setting an arbitrary society instead of letting it develop naturally?

If the people in your guild really want to be like that, then they would be like that regardless of any rules you set.

Basically, choosing people who adhere to your set of communication rules (your rules dont really cover anything else) rather than people who actually know what they are doing is limiting your success, not guaranteeing it.

Then I helps ya out. Other nights while doing heroic ICC bosses we took advantage of a break in the action fer ta play some very social hide-and-seek. Is how we roll. Now yer "Asociality is necessary for any success" hypothesis is falsified, and it took no resources at all.

Ok, lets do a review of your project. You claimed that if you have a trade channel without M&S (Simulate PUG-ing from a competent base) you don't need organizations, obligations or hierarchy in order to be succesful.

So you set some behavior rules and since "The PuG" is doing better than regular Pugin on trade channel you claim that "asocial behavior with peers" is the way to go in order to have succes.

Doesn't trade channel is already an "asocial behavior with peers" by nature? It is not a social group, since it doesnt have boundaries (everyone can join). I know i'm not with buddies ( I dont take crap from trade channel as a joke between "friends", no IRL things, no gz!, no hi/bye). It is not a communist collective. No forced specc, no forced attendance and no voice communication.

So there you have your "control group": trade channel. If both "The PuG" and trade channel have an "asocial behavior with peers" and one is more succesful than the other you cant claim that this behaviour is the "magic skill" for your success.

In my opinion, there are several things for the success of "The Pug". When you set your behavior rules, you're excluding the "social player" out of your guild. So now you have a group of anti-social or a-social guys. By nature, if you dont care much about social relations your brain is more adapted to mathematical, administration or innovation skills. They are all pretty good skills for raiding, aren't they?

Furthermore, if you have an open spot for the raid you can reruit from a competent base without hearthing to Dalaran an wasting half hour of everyone in the raid.

The points you want to be proven (or falsified):

The behavioral rules of the Ganking project work and perfectly capable to keep M&S out.(They are capable of keeping "social players" from the guild. Capable of keeping M&S? i doubt it, since you've mencioned several times that you have to replace some spots)

There is no need for "job-like" approach for the raiding. It can be perfectly no-obligation and casual (Sorry, i havent seen people riding in blues on "The Pug" raids)

There is no need for dedicated leaders if the goals are properly set and feedback can be provided by the system and peers. (There are leader in "The PuG" but they dont have a tag)

You know what is completely asocial? Single-player games. Why play an MMO when they are inherently social (as in "with others", not "friendly")? Why is this blog not about the intricacies of playing a solo game when all of the rules you've laid out would be completely perfect for you alone and a group of NPCs. What is the point?

@Last Anonymous: because there are no NPCs IRL. Playing a single-player game is just a game. An MMO is a simple RL simulation: people work for a goal.

@Justisraiser: yes. People are often replaced (read tomorrow's extra post for more on that). Not ONCE I've seen defensive behavior, not on replaces or on 300G fines, obviously not counting when someone proved that I was wrong and it's not him failed but someone else.

@Krytus: good idea, but no. The trade chat is not a control group because it's neither a volunteered group, nor it is permanent. The people on the trade chat belong to social guilds and on the trade chat only because they are forced: their guilds suck so much that they can't provide any raid. The trade chat people carry the characteristics of their guilds (where they spent most time) and not the /trade raids. I claim that if they would have no guild at all and would spend all time on /trade, they would improve (or more likely leave the game, improving the average by it).

I agree with everything here except the voice communication. While a majority of time Ventrillo is used in a more social fashion, you can't ignore that fact that it can be incredibly useful for improvising in a bad situation.

@Anonymous: the reason I gave on The PuG page was not a lie. I do NOT want Ventrilo save a bad situation. I want to wipe to show that person that standing in the fire is bad. It's not my responsibility to yell at him, it's his to not stand in the bad.

I don't like fights where everything is *too* choreographed. It's a classic argument of American Football versus International Football.

Most people want raids to work like American Football; you break up the fight into a series of "plays," define every player's role in each play in gross detail, and then killing the boss becomes a matter of following the script.

If players are really, really good at managing themselves and making decisions dynamically, (as is the case in IF), they'll be able to iron out wrinkles in strategy dynamically if they can communicate.

The most fun for me in raiding comes when we deviate from established strategies and find better solutions for the personnel makeup I'm running with.

It's well known that there's a shortage of tanks and maybe healers (confirmed by the long LFD queues for dpsers). For example, it's unlikely that among 100 random people you'll find roughly 20 tanks, 20 healers and 60 dpsers (1/1/3 tank/healer/dps ratio).

But you state that:"Recruitment is permanent. You can join any time." and "Invitation: everyone gets invited, except obvious retards". and"So if you want to prove the points above, or simply seeking a guild where you can raid with other competent people without being forced in any way, come!"

Because of the balance issue, I believe that these rules are incorrect. Say I start a new guild. If 20 non retarded people apply, they will all be accepted. Let's assume that 16 are dpsers, 2 are healers, 2 are tanks. Now, these 20 ppl wanna do a 10 man raid but if the two tanks don't wanna raid this week because "they're not forced in any way" then the whole guild can't raid. As a consequence, people will leave and the guild will fall apart.

My point is that not everyone can join at any time. If you're a GM, you must preserve the balance between roles in the guild. If you have too many dpsers already, you won't recruit even more.